JMRD5: AfterLife
by Lilac Reverie
Summary: John & Mike & Rose & Donna FINALE. Please see warnings within. Ten/TenB/Rose/Donna & Davey.
1. Prologue

_**WARNING: DEATHFIC**_

_**A/N:** This is the fifth and final entry in my series John & Mike & Rose & Donna._

_I'm extremely hesitant about posting this story, because frankly, it's shocking, depressing, and a rank tear-jerker. These four characters – five, with Davey – persist in turning their stories into Greek tragedies – the first finale they came up with was even worse than this!. At least it's short (compared to my other stories, anyway), and you won't have to wait for the end; I'm writing it all out in advance and posting the entire dreary thing at once._

_You have been warned. Read at your own risk._

_One note: Yes, I'm rearranging time slightly from the series, placing certain events much later than they are on the air. You'll understand when we get there._

_Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC, and those ain't my initials, even in real life. Which, in this case, may be a good thing._

_.

* * *

  
_

**Prologue**

"Ten..."

"_RUN!"_

"But..."

"Nine..."

"I can't stop it! Now RUN!"

"Eight..."

Out the door, Rose first, Davey second, the Doctor frantically bringing up the rear.

"Seven..."

Grabbing each other's hands, pulling each other along the corridor.

"Six..."

Sliding around the corner, caroming off the other wall.

"Five..."

Down the other corridor, slipping on the wet floor.

"Four..."

Bursting through the double doors into the Observation Deck.

"Three..."

O, blessed, beautiful, fantastic, brilliant sight: the TARDIS, spotlighted in the center of the huge room.

"Two...

He already had his keys out, unlocking the door with the remote as they flew across the floor on wings of pure terror.

"One..."

Three pairs of fingertips stretching out, touching the blue wood as if to caress it.

"Zero..."

.

.

.

They almost made it.


	2. Part One: Before

**Part One**

**Before**

_A short time earlier:_

"Davey, I understand how you feel – believe me, I truly do – but there's nothing I can do! I'm sorry I brought us here – if I'd realized the date, I would have left immediately. But this is a fixed point in time. The bomb that's about to make this satellite explode, and take out half the population below, is what spurs the Vachingi into ending the war with their neighboring systems, and ushers in a peace that will last a thousand years – and save untold millions of lives! I can't stop it!"

"You could if you wanted to. There's always another way to do things, some way that doesn't cost lives. You've been telling me that since I was a kid."

"I've been telling you about fixed points since you were a kid, too. Don't you remember Bowie Base One? The Catellian Disaster? Xenu Five? The Titanic?"

It was no use. The sixteen-year-old's eyes, filled with cold, hurt disdain, turned away as he faced out the space window looking over the doomed planet below, his balled fists jammed into his hoodie pockets, shoulders hunched.

As always.

_How had it come to this? _the Doctor's soul cried out. _What happened to my son, my little mate, the one who looked up to me and believed in me?_

_He's more Mike's son than mine, now._

It had been a mistake three years before to stop traveling and settle down in London, putting Davey into school with his cousins (half-siblings, to tell the truth). Living right down the street from Mike and Donna. With himself and Rose working in the shop, Davey had naturally gone there every afternoon, as well, and inevitably came more and more into his biological father's sphere. It was almost like pulling teeth, now, to get him to come away with them in the TARDIS on school holidays.

He couldn't blame Mike. Really, he didn't. Blame it on biology. As Davey had moved further into adolescence and the inevitable attendant tides of flooding hormones, he'd become more and more human, and drifted further and further away from his Time Lord father. The misunderstandings, wild mood swings and personality shifts, and ugly royal battles endemic to teenagers and their parents the universe over were only exacerbated by their dramatic basic differences in species psychology. On a very real, basic, gut level, they simply did NOT understand each other. And more and more often, that lack of understanding resulted in a widening, unbridgeable chasm, ably represented now by the back of the boy's head as he sulked disgustedly by the force fields.

"Davey..." Rose padded softly over to her son, trying to reach him through the tension. "He's right. This is the reality we face, sometimes. Sometimes there's just... nothing we can do." She put a pleading hand on his shoulder, but he pulled sharply out from under it, not turning.

The Doctor gritted his teeth. Against every instinct he possessed, each of them screaming _Get out, run! This is a monumentally BAD idea!_ he said, "Fine. Let's go. We'll try to disarm the bomb, and then try to figure out some other way to stop the war." If it would win back his son's love, that respectful look in his eyes, it would be worth it, whatever the cost of changing a fixed point.

He would regret that rash decision for the rest of his unnaturally long life.

^..^

They'd taken too long getting past Security, convincing – with the help of the Doctor's slightly-psychic paper – the Vachingi Commander of the danger lurking somewhere in the bowels of the massive manned satellite. By the time the bomb had been found; a fiendishly complicated and deceptively disguised trans-nuclear tripwire boobytrap worked into the very heart of the power grid, the countdown had already begun. The Doctor and a brave team of engineers worked frantically to stop it, until one of them had inadvertently tripped the dead man's circuit, causing the countdown to jump instantly to the ten-second mark – and they were suddenly, utterly out of time.

The blast caught the family's heels as they fell through the TARDIS doors, ripping those doors off their hinges and throwing one completely across the control room. The Doctor and Rose both screamed as their clothes were instantly seared off their backs, leaving charred flesh behind. Davey, a step to one side and inadvertently shielded from the worst by the angle of the blast and his parents' bodies, was blown by the blast wave up the ramp, miraculously knocked sideways by the flying door into the lever that spun them into the Void – just a second too late.

"Rose!" croaked the Doctor, crawling on singed hands and knees to her side. He gently turned her over, crying out with her as the motion ripped open both their flesh. She bit her lips, knowing the worst had come from the look in his eyes. Tears filled her own. "Doctor... I love you," she managed to whisper.

"Rose... NO!"

"Doctor?" Her eyes had widened, staring at his face. He glanced down at himself, seeing the familiar golden glow of regenerating Vortex energy a beat before he felt it through the burns.

"No, no, NO, not now!" But he couldn't stop it; it was already happening. He managed to put her down as gently as he could and shuffle back a step on his knees before it hit, the white-hot, frozen blast ripping through his cells, remaking him from the inside out. Within seconds it had burned completely through him and streamed outwards, flooding the control room with brilliant light before it was sucked back into the central column.

He did a quick check: hands, arms, legs – before ignoring the rest and dropping back down to his beloved's side, gathering her up again in brand new, trembling, unburned arms. "Rose..." he sobbed.

"Doctor..." Her voice had faded to the faintest whisper. She managed a tiny smile. "Still not ginger..."

Her eyes went unfocused, and the light within them, the light that had beckoned him across endless reaches of space, that had chided him when he was wrong, sustained him as he faced unthinkable evil, promised him forever... went out. A final, long sigh of escaping breath, and her precious form slowly, irreversibly, damningly collapsed in upon itself.

Rose Tyler Smith died in her husband's arms, her son looking on in frozen, silent horror from a few feet away.


	3. Emergency Program Omega

**Emergency Program Omega**

"Rose... No... _Rose... ROSE!"_ The Doctor went from whispering to screaming in four short words. He clutched her lifeless body closer, holding her to his chest as hard as he could, screaming her name over and over.

Something was digging into his stomach, something small and hard, and he irritably flinched away, looking down to see what could possibly have the ultimate gall as to distract him at this hellish moment. He reached with one hand and pulled out her superphone from a burnt, disintegrating pocket. He was about to smash it angrily into the floor when the memory struck him in the face, hard.

"_Emergency Program Omega!"_ he screamed to the TARDIS, which immediately went into hyperdrive, tossing them around on the floor as it fled across time and space to its preprogrammed destination. As soon as it stopped, he laid her body on the floor for the final time with a gutwrenching sob, pulled himself up and launched himself out the broken doors.

Shaken to his core, Davey followed wordlessly, skirting around his Mum's burned, lifeless body with the whites showing around his staring eyes, then stepping out into a mechanical room of some kind. The new Doctor was just smashing Mum's superphone into the side of a computer station, then picking some odd contraption out of the pieces and plugging it into the computer. "Come on, come on..." he murmured frantically.

The screen above the computer station fuzzed to life, showing an ordinary human bedroom with someone asleep on the bed. The someone stirred, moaning, and rolled over to face the viewers... and Davey gasped aloud, unbelieving. It was Mum.

Rose opened her eyes to a strange bedroom, and blinked several times. How had she gotten here? "Doctor? Doctor!" No answer. She sat up slowly, rubbing her forehead – she had a splitting headache. "Doctor?"

In front of the monitor, the newly regenerated Doctor was once again in frantic motion, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and punching up a setting, then pulsing it against the same computer input plug he'd just downloaded Rose by. A few seconds later, his own new form fuzzed into view on the screen behind Rose, out of her view. "No, no, no, wrong!" He changed the setting on the screwdriver and buzzed it again, and the image changed to his previous face, the one Rose had married, in the nick of time – an instant before she turned and saw him there.

"Doctor! Thank goodness! Where are we?"

The Doctor glanced around, finding a mirror and checking his image – yup, this was the right one. "So that's what it's like. Weird... very, very weird..."

"What are you wittering on about? Oh, never mind. Doctor, I had the strangest dream just now... it was so real. It was terrifying. I dreamed we were caught in some kind of explosion, and we were both hurt – badly. You... you regenerated, right in front of me! It was kinda funny, though – I was trying to tell you that you still weren't ginger..." Her merry chatter died away at the look on his face. "Doctor?"

Finally crossing the room, he knelt in front of her and took both her hands in his. "Rose... darling... it wasn't a dream."

"Of course it was. Here you are, unchanged. And here I am, not dead. I remember now, I died just after telling you..." She trailed off again, her eyes growing round.

"It wasn't a dream," he repeated carefully. "You died... and I regenerated. Then I launched the emergency program that brought us here. Rose.. we're in the Library. Inside the Library computer, just like Donna was. You remember me telling you about that? I hid a data ghost recorder inside your superphone, and I've had one inside my sonic. I downloaded both our traces into the computer, and here we are."

"I'm... dead? In the real world?"

"Yes, love."

"But you're not?"

"No. And yes, I regenerated. I've got a new face, out there. But I downloaded the old me, your me. Your Doctor. To stay with you forever."

"But you're still out there, aren't you?"

"Yes. This is just a copy."

She stared at him wildly for a moment. "But can't you bring me back out, like you did Donna and all those others?"

His head shake was the saddest she'd ever seen. His reply was so gentle, each word carried within the thinnest of eggshells. "No, love. I can't. Donna and the others were still alive when they were saved, so the computer was able to copy every tiny atom, every synapse, every cell. But the data ghost recorders only hold a tiny fraction of that – a memory. I can't bring you back out; there's not enough to make a whole person. We're only ghosts, love..."

"What about Davey? Was he all right? Is he still out there?"

"He wasn't hurt – not that I could see. I'd imagine that just about now, the real me is explaining to him that he can download a copy of himself in here with us, if he wants to. His data ghost recorder is inside his watch – the watch I gave him for Christmas five years ago."

On the other side of the monitor, the Doctor swiveled his head and looked at Davey, still standing a few feet away. He didn't speak, just waited.

"A copy? I'd still be here?" Davey asked, his voice squeaking.

"Yes. But a copy of you would live in there, too, keeping them company."

Making a snap decision, trying not to think too hard about all this insanity, Davey quickly undid the clasp and tossed his watch to the Doctor. Then his face twisted, "That's why you gave me that watch in the first place, isn't it?"

Ignoring the question, the Doctor buzzed the sonic against the watch, and the back fell off, revealing an even smaller version of the data ghost recorder. He plugged it into the data port –

"Wait!" Davey cried. "Can you make me younger? Like, ten years old? Before I knew... and make it so I don't know, don't remember anything that's happened since then?"

Glancing over his shoulder again, the Doctor simply nodded. He didn't have to ask what it was Davey was asking to forget: the knowledge that the Doctor was not his biological father. He buzzed the screwdriver against the recorder again...

Rose and her Doctor had paused, watching each other's eyes. Rose was breathing hard, trying to absorb this earthshaking knowledge... it was too much. She decided to pull a Scarlet O'Hara and worry about it tomorrow.

Just as she was about to give up on her son, he fuzzed into existence a few feet away – much younger than the last time she'd seen him a few minutes earlier.

"Mum! Dad!" the kid Davey cried, running the few steps to the bed and throwing his arms around both shocked parents. They stared at each other over his head.

"He must have asked for this age..." the Doctor realized. "The greatest gift he could give you."

"And you..." she whispered back.

The boy sat back, looking around with lively curiosity. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," replied Rose. She looked at the Doctor, helplessly. "So what now? What do we do? Where do we go? Can we actually 'go' anywhere?"

"Wherever and whenever we want, love. We have the entire universe and all of history, to choose from – just like before. Only now... it will truly never end."

As understanding began to dawn, her face lit up, and her supernova smile dawned brighter than ever. "You mean... just keep going from adventure to adventure, forever?"

"Forever..." he nodded. "Literally."

Rose's laugh pealed out, shaking the dust from the ceiling. "Well, then, let's go!"

Both her boys joining in the laughter, her husband cried, _"Allons-y!"_ And all three bounded to their feet, turned and walked out the door, hand-in-hand, still laughing, without a care in the universe.

^..^

"_Allons-y!"_ whispered the new Doctor, and winced. It just didn't flow right off this new tongue. _I'll never say that phrase again,_ he thought, cheerfully lying to himself that it was because of the change in vocal apparatus, not because it was what he'd always said to _her..._

He reached out suddenly and stabbed the button, turning off the screen. He didn't want to see any more. He twisted away... and came face-to-face with Davey, staring at him with tragic eyes. Almost involuntarily, they both turned at the same moment, looking with dread at the door of the TARDIS.

The Doctor made himself walk to those doors and look inside, aware of Davey at his shoulder. Rose's lifeless body was still on the floor of the console room. After a number of deep, fortifying breaths, they stepped carefully inside, walking on eggshells to stand on either side.

"I think... I think we should give her body to a star..." the Doctor said tentatively. "I think she'd like that, don't you?" Quickly, at the boy's stricken face, "Or do you think we should take her back to Chiswick?"

Looking down at Mum, Davey sobbed, then fought for control again. "No..." he finally answered. "I... I think she'd like the star, too."

The Doctor nodded, and turned to the controls. He paused at the sight; realizing for the first time that the TARDIS had been badly damaged by the explosion, too. Pieces were hanging by wires everywhere, a bunch of roundels had fallen and smashed on the floor, one door was lying on the other side of the room while the other was hanging, cockeyed, from a single hinge. "Well..." he said hopefully. "I think I can still make a couple of hops before I have to stop for repairs."

He managed the first jump creditably, with only a few minor bumps, bringing them to hover just on the edge of the star's gravity well. Then he ran down the corridor, coming back in a minute with a white sheet from somewhere, which he carefully wrapped her up tightly in, ignoring the tears streaming down his face. Davey stood by awkwardly, not knowing how to help. Finally it was done, the last knot tied carefully, securely, holding the most precious bundle in the universe.

He picked her up and turned towards the open doors, then paused, unable to take a step. Davey walked softly over and touched the wrapped bundle for the first time with trembling hands. They stared at each other wordlessly for an endless, aching moment... and then turned together and took those last six steps. Together, the two bereft souls pushed her body gently out past the force field (darkened against the light) into space, and the star's gravity instantly took her into its soft grip and began pulling her inescapably into its heart. Even the TARDIS paid tribute, tolling her cloister bell mournfully. They watched for as long as they could still see it, a tiny speck against the unbearable brightness. Still they stood, unable to make themselves leave, until at long last the TARDIS released her grip on the locus and began drifting away, spinning slowly so the star – Rose's star – was out of sight behind them.

Davey stood staring out into space, the limitless depths of absolute zero, and felt his heart freeze to the same temperature. Suddenly he hated it, hated every last star, every last planet, every last adventure of the life that had so captivated Mum, until it killed her. He wouldn't look at the Doctor, in that moment he never wanted to look at him again. He said only one sentence, utterly flat and as cold as the space he hated.

"I want to go home."


	4. Right Time, Wrong Place

**Right Time, Wrong Place**

This time, the trip was _much_ rougher, jarring them from one side of the control room to the other – even shaking the Doctor out the door at one point, hanging onto the frame for dear life as the TARDIS skimmed over nighttime London while Davey frantically tried to keep her steady. The Doctor managed to pull himself back inside and stagger back up the ramp, bringing her in for the roughest landing in memory: coming to rest – if you could call it that – on her side. Both of them fell through the corridor into the back reaches of the time ship's labyrinth; the Doctor landing in the tilted pool in the library, while Davey caught himself further on in the netting under the high wire in the gym. Both began the laborious climb back up walls formerly known as floors to the broken front doors.

The Doctor made it first, pulling himself out to sprawl face first in what appeared to be a garden behind a small house. The lights of London – of any big city – were nowhere to be seen on the horizon. What he did find, though, was a small redheaded girl, who took it into her head that he was there to help her out with something – some sort of scary crack. She was telling him about it while he tried to inspect the TARDIS for damage, when Davey finally made it to the door.

"Hullo!" he said to the little girl, interrupting her mid-stream. "I'm Davey. What's your name?"

"Amelia Pond."

"And can you tell me the date, Amelia Pond?"

Eyes wide, she told him.

"And where exactly, aside from in your garden, are we? I mean, what town is this?"

"Leadworth, near Gloucester," came the reply. "Don't you know?"

"I'm afraid not. We kind of crash-landed, off-course."

The Doctor interrupted with the declaration that he was famished, the tremendous energy deficit from regenerating finally making itself known. "And then you can show me the crack in your wall!" he told his pint-sized hostess engagingly, and she willingly led him up the path, both of them talking a mile a minute. Neither one looked back to see if Davey was following.

Still sitting on the damaged door frame, he stared sadly after them. "Well," he muttered. "At least you got the date right." Looking up at the starry sky, he suddenly realized he had no idea which one was Mum's, and the pain stabbed deeply into his heart.

Shaking his head violently to get rid of the thought, he looked around and spied the garden shed, and hopped off the TARDIS to go poking through it. He found a rope and tied one end to the water pump, tossing the rest up and through the TARDIS doorway. Then he climbed back onto the blue box, wrapped the rope around himself and began rappelling down to his room.

The TARDIS began groaning and ringing her cloister bell ominously as he climbed back up half an hour later, fetching the Doctor and little Amelia back out of the house. The Doctor was explaining that the ship was fixing itself, readjusting, but he needed to take just one short time hop in her to complete repairs – just five minutes! He grabbed the rope Davey had tied up, preparing to swing up onto the box, then stopped, staring, as the teenager's head popped through the opening, followed by a stuffed backpack which sailed out and landed on the grass.

"Davey, what are you doing?"

"I'm going home. Taking the bus this time, it's safer. And faster. And guaranteed."

"But.. I'll take you there! Just as soon as I do this one thing."

Davey ignored him, picking his pack off the ground.

"Son... Please."

Davey started shaking his head at that, then he looked straight at the man he used to call Dad. "I accept the fact that you're the Doctor. I watched you change. But you're not my Dad anymore. My Dad is in the Library with my Mum."

Stunned silence reigned for an endless moment, then the TARDIS clanged her bells again, warning the Doctor she was about to take off without him.

"I've got to do this. I'll be right back – five minutes! Davey, please, wait here. I'll be right back, and then I'll take you directly to Chiswick!" The TARDIS began to _whoosh_ away, and the Doctor climbed up onto her side, desperately looking back at Davey. "Five minutes! Wait right there!" He popped down inside the ship just as she faded out completely.

Davey just shook his head. He turned to Amelia. "I hate to ask this, but would you happen to have a ham sandwich I could nick? Or something simple?"

"You don't want fish custard, too?"

His face twisted. "Ewwwww. That's... _disgusting!"_

Her face broke into a grin. "You're right, it was. Sure, I can get you a sandwich. Be right back!" She ran into the house, back in two minutes with his sandwich wrapped up in a piece of newspaper.

He thanked her warmly, tucking the sandwich carefully into the top of his backpack, then swung it onto his shoulder. "Which way to the bus station?"

She pointed down the dark lane, but then asked, "Aren't you going to wait? He'll be back any minute."

He gazed down at her young, earnest, hopeful face for a moment, sorrow oozing out of his eyes, then sadly shook his head. "No. And don't you wait for him, either, Amelia Pond. Don't waste your life."

And he turned and walked into the night.


	5. Part Two: After

**Part Two**

**After**

Rory and Amy's wedding reception had been a fantastic, fun affair, full of everything such a celebration should be. The Doctor was only sorry he'd missed the ceremony itself. Only now, alone in the TARDIS after River had made her usual mysterious exit, were the memories crawling out of the dark corners of his mind, memories he couldn't ignore this time as he had been for the past year, traveling in his new body with his new friends. Memories of the last wedding he'd been to, his own. To Rose.

_Rose... Ah, beloved, what are you doing right now, there in those endless computer banks? What adventures are you having with my ghost? Why aren't you here with me now? Why..._

Amy came in just then, trailing Rory, interrupting his excruciating reverie again. Blessed Amy, with her endless energy and fearless curiosity. _So like... no. She's NOTHING like her. Nothing at all._

He whirled around, letting his gob run loose again, chasing away the memories with words and action. Offering an exiting array of destinations for their honeymoon.

"I don't care!" she whooped, and Rory grinned in agreement. "You decide, Doctor. Where do _you_ want to go? What do _you_ want to see?"

_I want to see a star. Her star._ He began to bat the unwanted impulse away, but then froze, unable to do the same to the follow-on thought. "Amy..." he began tentatively, and his uncharacteristic stillness and solemnity caught her attention. "I should like... to ask you to do me a huge favor. It won't take long."

"Of course," she replied earnestly. "Anything."

Without explaining further, he set their destination from memory and took them on a short jump, then led her to the door and peeked out. He was just where he wanted to be, in the old familiar alleyway. Resolutely turning his eyes away from the high privacy fence that hid their tiny little house, he turned back to Amy. "If you go out this alley, turn left, and go two blocks, on the right side of the street, middle of the block, you'll find a used book store called _Remember Elizabeth._ Go inside and ask for Mike. Don't talk to anyone else, _just_ Mike. If he's there, please tell him – privately! – where we're parked, and that I'd like very much to see him, if he's willing. Be sure to make it an invitation."

She waited a beat to make sure he was finished, then nodded. "Left, two blocks, _Remember Elizabeth,_ Mike. A private invitation. He knows who you are, then?"

He nodded, a sad, wry smile teasing the corner of his mouth. "Yes. He knows me."

"OK. Be right back." Blowing a kiss to her new husband, she walked swiftly out the door. She and Rory had agreed with a single look during the flight that this must be very important to their best friend, and so was worth whatever the favor was. Rory sat silently on the jump seat beside the console, just waiting.

^..^

It was a quiet, ordinary weekday afternoon in early spring. Only a trickle of customers had been in the shop all day, and Mike was lounging behind the counter, leaning lazily against the wall as was his habit, not really thinking of much of anything, when a cute young redhead walked in and saw him there. He gave her a friendly smile, noting how she looked around first as if checking if anyone else were present (only one other customer was there, in the back), before walking to counter. "Are you Mike?" she asked quietly.

"That I am. What can I do for you?"

"I have an invitation for you." She hesitated. "From the Doctor." He froze, his breath catching in his chest. "He's parked a couple of blocks away, and would like to see you, if you're willing to come."

_Why now? Why now, after all this time?_ He sighed heavily, knowing he wouldn't be able to refuse – out of curiosity, if nothing else. No, it was more than that. He owed it to his twin, his former self. No matter the cost. He nodded slowly – then, remembering, he looked around at the clock. "I can't leave just now, though, I have to wait till Donna gets back from her errand. Give me ten minutes."

"OK," she said. "Would you like me to wait here? Or down the street?" Sensing that discretion was desirable, perhaps she should stay out of this Donna's sight, whoever she was.

"That way?" he pointed, and she nodded. "I'll meet you at the cafe on the corner."

She nodded again, and was almost out the door when he called after her, "Hang on." She looked back to see him shaking his head at himself, then wave her back inside. "Sorry. You caught me off guard, is all. Don't mean to be rude. What's your name? I'm Mike Smith, if he didn't tell you." He reached across the counter to shake her hand.

"Amy Pond. Er, Amy Williams. Just got married." She blushed.

"To who?"

"Rory Williams. My fiance – er, husband. We travel with the Doctor."

_Taking them in pairs, now, are you? Probably a good idea... Certainly safer._ He gazed at her a moment, gauging. "You don't have any idea what's going on here, do you?" Motioning with one finger, he meant himself and the shop.

She took a breath, then admitted, "No."

Mike nodded, then looked around as a thought struck him. "Hang on a tick." Crossing the shop in a few long strides, he came back with a book off one of the stacks and handed it to her. "A wedding gift for you. Don't let him see it – at least, not till you're done with it. But definitely share it with your husband. Might give you both a better idea what you're dealing with."

Curious now, she looked at the title: _A Journal of Impossible Things_, by Verity Newman. She looked back at Mike.

"Every word is true," he assured her. Then, "Meet you at the cafe."

^..^

The Doctor was sitting on the spiral steps leading up to the raised console, hunched over with his hands tucked between his knees. Just waiting. Rory, watching him silently from above, could read the tension radiating from the back of his neck. He took a breath to say something, then thought better of it and let it out – just as the door opened again to admit his lovely bride, followed by a tall, tousle-haired string bean of a stranger.

Mike looked all around the room, his eyes glowing with surprised admiration for the remodeling job, nodding at Rory in passing, not really bothering to hide the fact that he was avoiding looking at the Doctor right away. "Ohhhh, now _this_...is _gorgeous!_ Well done!" A happy chirp came suddenly from the glowing time rotor, surprising everyone, and Mike's grin broadened as he gazed fondly up at it. "Remember me, do you, sweetheart? Yes, I like your new look. It definitely suits you."

Then he abruptly dropped his gaze down to his twin, still sitting on the steps below, and they stared at each other for a few silent moments, both expressions unreadable. Finally, Mike said slowly, half-teasing, "You, on the other hand..." A puzzled look twisted his face. "are ... _twitchy._" He leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms, deceptively casual.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Thanks. Good to see you too, little brother."

Annoyance flashed across Mike's face, but he batted it away with "A bow tie? Really?"

"Bow ties are cool!" It didn't convince anyone this time, either.

Silence again, and again Mike broke it. "Why now?" he asked simply.

The Doctor started to answer, then diverted himself with a puzzled "How long has it been?"

Coolly, disgusted: "Fifteen years."

That set the doctor back. "Fifteen...?"

Amy broke in, nervously trying to lighten the atmosphere by teasing him, knowing it wasn't going to work even as it slipped out. "That's worse than your twelve year five minutes!"

The Doctor looked over at her, adding it up. "No, it _is_ twelve – plus the next two – plus the one year we've been traveling," referring to both the unintended gaps between his first three visits to her. He shook his head. "I lost the synch link when I had to break open her superphone, and I didn't set the time right on the way here." That didn't make any sense to anybody, but it wasn't important.

"Didn't you?" Mike challenged. "You've had all this time to come see him, and you never did. And you still won't, now, because you haven't."

"He didn't want me to! He made that quite clear!"

Mike shook his head, scoffing. "You really don't know anything about teenagers, do you? Or sons..."

That cut the Doctor to the bone, and he stared at Mike, raw pain oozing out. "Don't you mean, _your_ son?"

Mike said carefully, "I didn't set out to steal his affection. I was just there to pick up the pieces." Another long pause, then he took a deep breath and held out an olive branch. "Look... you're not the first father to struggle to understand a teenaged son. To not be able to connect with him. I know dozens of families personally who've fallen apart when their kids hit fifteen. They're rough years for any kid to get through, let alone one with a father of a different species." He snorted. "It wasn't exactly all pie and ice cream after he got back here, either, for a long time. They were very rough years for all of us."

Another long silence, while the Doctor stared at the floor. Then, in a quiet voice, he asked, "How is Davey?"

Mike took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax a bit. He couldn't quite keep the pride out of his voice as he answered, "For one, it's David, not Davey. His choice. But he's doing good. Real good. He stayed in school, and got a Master's degree in green civil engineering, and set out to change the world. Literally." He waited a beat, drawing it out, getting the Doctor's attention with a meaningful grin. "He's set the goal for himself of bringing clean drinking water and sanitation to every human on earth."

The Doctor blinked, then gasped. "You mean he's _that_ David Smith?" Mike nodded, and a delighted grin broke out on both their faces. The Doctor chortled, slapping his knee. "Oh, that's _fantastic!"_

"What does that mean, '_that' _David Smith?" asked Amy.

Mike looked over at her, sharing his delight. "It means he's going to succeed, eventually. Within his lifetime, or shortly after, everyone on earth will have clean water to drink."

"You haven't told him, have you?" the Doctor broke in, and Mike flashed him an exasperated glare.

"Of course not. Give me _some_ credit."

"Sorry."

"You should go see him," Mike offered, casually, as though suggesting afternoon tea. "He's down in Africa at the moment, Ivory Coast, I think, in Abidjan, working with some international NGO's there to get some big new project going." He looked up at the time rotor and spouted off a long string of numbers. "That's his international satellite phone number, that he _always_ has on him. You can track him down with it." Another chirp from the rotor told them she already had the phone pinpointed, and Mike grinned. "That's your next destination, sweetheart, no matter what he says. Take him there next. That's an order." Another chirp.

The Doctor was now thoroughly annoyed at this casual proposed hijacking of his time ship. "And what makes you think he even wants to see me?" he asked pugnaciously.

Mike looked straight at his twin. "Because I know him. Because you were his father. Because after everything that's happened, deep down, you're still his father. He _needs_ to see you. And you _need_ to see him, to talk with him, even if only for one last time."

Several more beats, before the Doctor accepted that, however unwillingly. "You could come, too," he offered.

"Why would I want to come?"

"Because I thought... I thought I could take you both on a little trip. A very specific trip."

Mike was bewildered. For once, he wasn't following. "Where?"

"To the Library. To see them. Her."

Mike froze, a wave of horror and grief crashing out past the barriers he'd so carefully and painfully built, piece by piece, over fifteen long years. "You son of a bitch!" he hissed, and all three stared at him in shock.

He pushed off the door frame, great tragic brown eyes fixed on the Doctor. "I've had fifteen years to try to get used to the idea that she's gone, and I've never been able to accept it. I still can't. And now you offer me _this?_" He shook his head, ignoring the tears suddenly threatening to streak down his cheeks. "This was a mistake. I shouldn't have come here." A final, long look at his twin, his former self. "Go to Africa. You need to do that. But don't ever come back here again. Just leave us alone!" And he was gone, taking all the sunshine out of the room.

The Doctor stared after him, utterly still. "I'm sorry," he whispered to the empty doorway.


	6. Through A Screen, Darkly

**Through a Screen, Darkly**

He had tried to argue with the TARDIS, after all, not wanting to go to Africa, but she'd stubbornly refused to let him change the settings. "_Fine!"_ he finally grumbled, slamming the controls and bouncing them roughly south. Then he stood there, unmoving, staring at nothing... until Amy walked softly to his side and took his hand. When he finally glanced sideways at her, she simply said, "Come on," and led him down the stairs to the door.

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, he opened the door, finding himself in a dirty, murky alley between a small hotel and some shops. And there, a few steps away, holding open the back door to the hotel, staring unbelievingly... was Davey. _David_, he corrected himself. All grown up, thirty-one years old, fulfilling the promise of stringy good looks he'd only hinted at before. _Oh, god, he's got her eyes. Why did I never see that before?_

Knowing he was delaying, the Doctor finally forced himself to step outside, but once there, he didn't know what to say or do, finally settling on an utterly inane "Hello, David."

"I heard the TARDIS," came the reply. "I couldn't believe it. After all this time..." He gave himself a shake, then looked the Doctor over. "You haven't changed again since then. How long has it been for you?"

"A year." An awkward pause. "I... I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner. I didn't think you wanted me to."

David looked away. "No... I probably didn't," he admitted. "How did you find me?"

"Went to Chiswick first. Mike gave me your satellite phone number, and the TARDIS traced the signal." Pretending it had all been his idea.

"Oh." Another awkward pause, then: "What are you doing here?"

"I just... wanted to see you. To see if you're OK. Just..." He swallowed hard, and changed direction. "I thought maybe... you might like a trip... to the Library..." He couldn't say the rest, but he saw David caught on immediately.

"We'd be able to see them? On the monitor, like before?" The Doctor nodded, and David looked away again, tears prickling, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "_One_ trip, then right back to here and now?"

"Right back. Return trips are easy."

It was way too sudden, too abrupt to process. But how many times in a lifetime are you given a chance like this? A second chance to say goodbye? He nodded jerkily. Realizing he still held onto the hotel door, he closed it quietly, then walked stiffly across to the blue box he had once called home. The Doctor stepped aside to let him pass, then followed him in.

David was staring at Amy, but before anyone could make introductions, he said, "Hello, Amelia Pond. I guess he did come back for you." He couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Amy, startled, stared back, then suddenly made the connection that had been eluding her. "Davey? Oh my god! I didn't realize!" Typically impulsive, she threw her arms around him for a warm hug, feeling him shaking, giving him an extra squeeze before her arms dropped again. "Hi," she smiled.

"Hi," he smiled back. "But it's David now."

"And it's Amy now. And this is my husband, Rory." She swiveled and pointed at said husband, still hovering on the platform above, and Rory waved down at their passenger.

David waved back, then did a slow 360, taking in the remodeled control room, just as Mike had done shortly before. "Nice," was his only comment.

The Doctor had gone up the stairs and quietly input the settings for their destination: the same control room, deep underneath the Library surface, out of reach of the Vashta Nerada far above, several years after their last emergency visit (which he'd always kept carefully bookmarked, never erasing it from the computer's memory). Now he looked over the railing at David and Amy. "Ready?"

David blew out a puff of air, a rough almost-sigh. "No," he admitted. "But go."

^..^

David stood, staring frozenly at the screen he'd last seen fifteen years before, when he'd watched Mum and Dad and a younger version of himself go sauntering out the door into their new world. Finally, stuttering, he waved a hand at it, not turning towards the Doctor standing a few feet away. "I... I don't... How do I...?"

"Oh. Sorry." The Doctor stepped over and turned on the screen, entered some commands into the massive alien keyboard below, then turned away before he could see them himself, running like a coward – and knowing it – back inside the TARDIS a few feet away.

The initial snow cleared, showing a large, well-used living room from a strangely low angle. The scene tickled his memory, somehow; he thought he'd seen the room before. Startled, his better-than-the-average-human memory suddenly placed it in the huge old rambling house they'd lived in when he was a pre-schooler, back in the 'other world'.

Just as he shook his head, a couple fuzzed into the middle of the room, mid-step. Dressed in the fanciest formal dress he'd ever seen them in, Mum – in a long, flowing, trailing ball gown of dark lavender and black silk – and Dad – in a dove-grey tailed tuxedo – continued waltzing, gazing deeply and lovingly into each other's eyes, for several seconds before realizing they'd been transported away from whatever ballroom they'd been in moments before.

"Why are we in our living room?" she asked dreamily, puzzled but unconcerned.

"I... don't know. I didn't bring us here," he replied. "Did you?" She just looked at him, amusedly exasperated, and he grinned, then called out towards the ceiling. "Doctor Moon? Why are we home?"

"Look at the television set," came an enigmatic, disembodied male voice.

To David, it seemed as though they both turned and looked directly at himself. "Davey!" cried Rose. They broke apart (finally) and walked towards him, still hand-in-hand, dropping down onto a pair of stools in the foreground. "What's going on? Why are you calling us this way?"

David stared at the monitor... and then the coin dropped. "You... you can see me?"

"Of course we can," replied the Doctor, his achingly familiar brown eyes dancing with merriment. "Why wouldn't we? – OH!" He gasped – whether he'd made the connection himself, or the monitoring program "Doctor Moon" had slipped it into his digitized mind, David would never know. He turned to his wife. "Rose... this is the real Davey, out in the real world, in the Library!"

She gasped in slow motion. It had been so very long since she'd even let herself remember that she was only a ghost in a machine. She dropped to her knees on the floor in front of the console TV (in one corner of his mind Davey remembered the big box on the floor in that old house now) and placed a visibly trembling hand on the screen – he knew she was touching the image of his cheek. He put his own hand on the monitor, and she moved hers to match, as if they could feel each other through the glass. "Oh, Davey..." she breathed. "And all grown up and handsome. How long has it been?"

He couldn't answer, couldn't speak. The tears he'd spent fifteen years suppressing suddenly ripped out from deep within his soul, pouring down his cheeks as he sobbed uncontrollably. Vaguely aware of Dad also dropping to his knees on the floor and putting his hand on the screen beside Mum's, he moved his other hand up to make the other nonexistent connection. "I'm sorry!" he choked out. "I'm so sorry! God, you don't know... all my life... I'm so sorry!"

"Sorry for what, sweetheart?"

He stared at her through his sobs, voice cracking like the teenager he had been then. "It was my fault! I'm the reason you died! I'm the one who insisted... who made us stay and try to defuse the bomb! If I hadn't been so fucking stupid and stubborn, it wouldn't have happened!'

Dad had been trying to break in. "No, Davey, no! Listen to me, son! Please... Davey... please listen to me!" Trying to stifle his sobs, David looked at Dad, and he continued. "It _wasn't your fault._ It was _mine_. _I'm_ the one who gave in, against my better judgment. I should have known not to try to change a fixed point. I _did_ know. But I went ahead and tried to, anyway. It's_ my_ fault, son. Not yours. Not ever yours."

David kept shaking his head, wanting – _needing_ the absolution but unable to accept it. "I shouldn't have been such a little shit. I don't even know why I did it, every time. I hated the things I said, even as I said them. I'm sorry, Dad. I'm so sorry..."

"I'm sorry, too, son. I should have tried harder to understand. I was too damn stubborn for my own good, always. She can attest to that..." he nodded sideways at Rose.

David glanced back at Mum, and she caught his eyes and held them. "Davey.. listen to me, honey. I want to tell you something, something very important... _It's all right._ I know this will be hard for you to understand; it took me a long time to understand it myself. But _it's all right. __I'm__ all right._ This..." she waved a hand around the room, but meaning far beyond its walls, "this is my happy ending, Davey."

He blinked at that, shaking his head in disbelief, but she went on. "Ever since the day I married your Dad, I lived in constant fear – not for my life, but for his. I dreaded the day the inevitable would come, and he was wounded or sick badly enough to regenerate. Because I knew, deep inside, that when he did... he wouldn't be the same man I loved. He'd still be the Doctor, always, but I would lose my husband. I never wanted to see that day come – it would have been worse than watching him truly die. I hoped I'd die first. But this... honey, this is the best of all possible endings, for me. 'Cause now I get to keep _my_ Doctor, _my _husband, for all time. Now he'll never change. And we'll just keep on going, having adventures, and loving each other, forever. Just like we'd promised.

"Honey, I know it's been hard for you. I know we left you too early, too young. But I also know we left you in good hands. The Doctor – whoever he is now – and your Uncle Mike and Aunt Donna. I know they'll always take good care of you. And they have, haven't they?" He nodded, unwilling to tell her that only two of the three had been there – as much or more by his choice as anyone's.

She smiled at him again. "I know we left you too soon. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. But honey... life is never fair. And all any of us can do is just... the best we can, with what we're given. And from the looks of you, you've been doing all right. So tell me... what _have_ you been doing?"

It took him few extra seconds and a bunch of hard sniffs, but finally he began to tell them the story of his life for the past decade and a half. Dad blinked and stared a moment when he mentioned his goal for the Earth, but hid a smile and told him to go on. He'd tell Rose about their son's brilliant future later.

"And is there any special someone?" Mum wanted to know.

David blushed. "Yes... but we're not married. I..." He shrugged. "I'm just not ready." They smiled at him, reading between the lines. "But what about me? I mean, the copy of me I put in there?"

Mum laughed. "You're fine. All grown up, too, and off having adventures of your own." She turned to query Dad. "Where is he now?"

"Uhhhh – on safari? On Cygnus Prime? I think?" He laughed. "I don't know. But we meet up regularly, and often travel together."

They chattered on, catching up, for almost an hour, but after a while... the silences began to grow. And at last, they all knew the time had come.

To say goodbye, for the last time.

Rose smiled at her son wistfully. "It's time for you to go, sweetheart. Time to get on with your life. And, Davey... go marry that girl of yours. Don't waste any more time. Let go of the past, and _live._"

He closed his eyes tight for a moment against the tears that were threatening to come again, then managed a small smile in return. "OK, Mum. I will." Knowing he had to say it, knowing it was the reason he'd come, he choked down a sob and forced himself. "Goodbye, Mum. Goodbye, Dad. You know I'll always love you, I'll always miss you."

"And we'll always love you, too, son. We'll always be with you, in your heart." Dad replied gruffly.

Rose couldn't say the word. Instead, she pressed a kiss to her fingers, then pressed the fingers to the screen where his cheek was.

David couldn't keep the sobs down. He tried to reach for the button to turn the screen off, but couldn't make himself punch it, staring at their beloved faces.

But Dad, seeing the struggle, reached out and turned off their TV, cutting the connection. He stood suddenly, pulling Rose up into his arms and holding her tightly as she wept for her son's heartache, both of them hoping he would keep his promise, let go of his guilt, and begin to live.

After a few minutes, her sobs began to ease, and he leaned over to whisper his secret into her ear, about _that_ David Smith, and the bright future of world-changing accomplishments their son would have. As he knew it would, it eased her fears and her tears, and she smiled up at him again. He produced a handkerchief from thin air and gently wiped her face, (fixing her makeup with a wave), and then smilingly pulled her back into their waltz.

"Back to the ball, if you please," he said to the air, and they danced out of their living room and back into a sparkling royal open-air ballroom, blending into a hundred other couples, under a billion glittering stars.

^..^

David stared at the black screen through a curtain of tears, but the wild sobs he thought were coming stayed at the back of his throat. He shut his eyes and bowed his head, just breathing for a few minutes. Suddenly warm arms were around him, and he realized Amy had come out of the TARDIS to hold him close, offering the comfort of human contact. Accepting it, he held her tightly back, feeling her warmth seep slowly into his cold frame, soothing away the last of his tears. Finally releasing her, he gave her a tiny smile. "Thank you."

She simply nodded and stepped back, and together they returned to the TARDIS. David realized he hadn't offered to let the Doctor visit – but as soon as he thought it, he remembered how he'd skittered away from the monitor, and realized: he hadn't wanted to.

Nevertheless, there was something he owed the Time Lord. He looked up at him on the console platform, catching his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I was such a little shit. And I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, for that last day, and the decision I forced you into. It was my fault." He managed to say it calmly this time. Dad had offered him forgiveness, but he needed to say it to the real Doctor, too.

Who was shaking his head. "It wasn't your fault. You didn't force me. It was my decision, and it was a bad one. But it wasn't your fault. I'm sorry, too, for not trying harder with you. And for not coming to see you before now." He turned abruptly away, manifestly uncomfortable with the strong emotions, the glaring reminders of his past life, now forever beyond his reach, and began the flight back to Africa.

When they landed a few moments later, David turned and let himself out the door before the Doctor reached the bottom of the stairs. But he stopped at the hotel door, turning back to look at the man he'd called Dad one last time.

"You know, I've been thinking," the Doctor said brightly, not wanting to let go just yet. "About this goal of yours. I could help with that. I mean, I've seen lots of solutions all over the universe for getting fresh water, or waste disposal. I could bring them to you, when I find them. Maybe you'd find some useful gadgets..."

David gave a tiny laugh, looking away, then nodded his head. "Sure," he said. Then, looking back again, "OK... I'll see you, then."

"See you." Smiling his awkward smile, the Doctor gave a jerky wave, then turned and disappeared back into the blue box. A minute later, it _whooshed_ away, leaving the hot dry wind to whistle down the empty alley, picking up bits of trash and blowing it around and around in a cockeyed garbage waltz.


	7. Epilogues

**Epilogues**

_From the London Times Chiswick local page, several decades later:_

Hundreds of Chiswick residents gathered today at St Basil's Cathedral to say goodbye to two of their own, Michael and Donna Noble Smith. Founders and long-time owners of the beloved local book store _Remember Elizabeth_, the couple, both in their eighties, retired eighteen years ago to devote themselves to their lifelong hobby of traveling all over the world, and so were two of the 614 victims of the fatal Bangkok Air Flight 2971 disaster over the South China Sea last week. Devoted parents and grandparents, the Smiths are survived by their four children: world-renown environmental scientist and clean-water activist David Smith, multiple Oscar and BAFTA winning actress Lucy Noble, Labour Party chief and former Prime Minister Lyra Smith, and her twin brother, Loren, who took over the book store from their parents; as well as seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Known throughout the town as kindhearted souls who gave generously of their time to a wide range of local and national charities, the Smiths will be sorely missed.

^..^

_From Reuters News Agency, flash-printed around the world, two decades later:_

Dateline Bangladesh: Thousands of international diplomats, scientists, and activists were on hand today to mark the grand opening of the Bhakhati-David Smith Memorial Seawater Treatment Plant outside the capital Dhaka. Serving the quarter-billion population of Bangladesh, the tenth-largest population in the world, the plant uses the revolutionary pressurized colloidal aggregate system developed by its namesake, the late Nobel Peace Laureate David Smith, who refused to patent it, instead giving the technology free to the world. The day is especially poignant as it marks the final realization of Mr. Smith's oft-cited lifelong dream of bringing fresh,clean drinking water to every human on Earth. Sadly, the man responsible did not live to see his dream, dying just four years ago of a sudden brain hemorrhage, but his widow, Nichele, and their two sons John and Michael were in attendance, helping the Bangladeshi President and the UN Secretary General cut the ceremonial ribbon. Also sharing the stage was Mr. Smith's sister and collaborator, the celebrated actress Lucy Noble, who worked tirelessly for decades as spokesperson for and Vice-President of the World Water Organization founded by Mr. Smith, the worldwide NGO many credit as the single most important force which has now effectively solved our planet's former water problems.

David Smith was an undoubted genius, inventing dozens of wildly imaginative, yet brilliantly simple, systems for treating soiled water, tiny rural sewage systems suitable for individual homes or small villages, and producing drinking water out of seawater, dry oil and natural gas wells, and seemingly thin air in every terrain and climate from the driest deserts to the highest mountain ranges. "He seemed to reach out and take inspiration from the stars," said a longtime associate, who identified himself only as a doctor. "He was a brilliant, dedicated man. I was proud to know him. Planet Earth is a far, far better place for his having been born on it."

^..^

For the remainder of his impossibly long life, the biggest, most ardent bibliophile in the universe never returned to the Library.

But far, far beneath the planet's surface, in the largest computer system ever built, in a universe of their own making, Rose and her Doctor danced...

and laughed...

and dined...

and ran...

and loved...

and lived...

…._forever._


End file.
